


num credis

by Ariasune



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:44:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2615543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariasune/pseuds/Ariasune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryou didn't actually care about the Spirit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	num credis

Malik finds him at a strange, disdainful hour and when he leans against the frame of the double doors, Ryou looks up and gives him a smile that curdles in the pit of Malik's stomach. It's too quiet, the silence slipping through his teeth and fingernails, so Malik drags a chair out - clawing at the floor with such a noise - and sits down across from Ryou. 

Now that he's here, he finds himself too quiet.

"Can't sleep?" Ryou asks, pushing a glass of something clear towards Malik. He picks it up, and downs it without so much as a sniff, and he's honestly more surprised than disappointed that it's water. He rolls it about his palate, swallowing with an ease that hurts, digging in at the back of his throat as he gulps. Across from him, Ryou clears his voice, gestures at the food, "Did you want some of this? I've got plenty."

"Anything stiffer to drink?" Malik looks across the table, "Not that I should - Isis would have my head - but given how things turned out..."

"Sorry," Ryou takes a bite of bread, snapping at it.

Toying with his earrings, Malik eyes Ryou's food, a laugh curving at his lips. He can feel it pressing at him from the inside out; a deep swell of laughter, and then, there beneath it, an uncertainty licking at his lungs, "Ryou, right?"

There's a nod, and a hand held up as Ryou finishes his bread. Finally, he nods at Malik again, smiling, "That's right."

"I'm Malik," He almost stutters on his own name, staggers through the introduction, "I don't know if you knew."

"I didn't," Ryou replies, unperturbed as he cuts into a potato.

The silence reigns again, crowned and ordained by Malik, who taps his fingers on the tabletop. Finally, he reaches for the pitcher of water and lets it fall to the bottom of his glass. Shyly, he looks up to study Ryou all but swallow one bite after another, teeth flashing but otherwise perfectly poised. The laugh comes out, at last, and it's as easy as breathing.

"Gods, he didn't feed you much did he," Malik shakes his head, before wincing, "Fuck, I guess-"

"Oh, it's fine," There's an almost reassuring scrap of metal, and Ryou hums in approval as he takes a bite of peach, licking at his teeth.

Leaning back in his spot, Malik plays with his glass, looking squarely into the water as he speaks. He feels half-drowned out here, long before he saw Ryou. The feeling had come bubbling up through him for hours, and the only thing, the only thing- "It's hard to believe he's gone-" There are no pretences about who he refers to, and none about his ability to wriggle loose from fate, creep through the crevices of existence and _linger_ , "He is gone?"

"He's gone," Ryou says agreeably.

He isn't entirely gone. That thought came to Malik almost an hour ago, pressing against his mind like a waterlogged cat, begging to be let in. He came to find Ryou to lay certain things to rest. 

"I'll miss him," Malik murmurs, half to himself, uncertain where to begin with the viper-sharp feelings in his chest.

Across from him, he's finally said something horribly wrong as Ryou slams his cutlery down, "What?" Ryou asks, head tilting. There is a cold in his voice that drags Malik in, like a breeze on his face. It's chilling, but it's soothing a burn branded across his chest. Where the heat tracks into Malik's muscles, Ryou's reaction is needed.

"I will- -I already miss him," Malik repeats, voice catching, "I hope he's at peace, wherever he-"

"You shouldn't listen to him," Ryou decides, picking up another peach and biting into it, teeth showing, "He'd only be at peace after burying us all and dancing on our grave."

"That isn't what he wanted," Malik  _says_ that, but abruptly he isn't so sure.

Ryou's answering gesture is wide, expansive, encompasses something Malik doesn't want.

"Enlighten me."

Some emotion carried sweetly between Malik's lungs dislodges, comes hurtling out of his mouth in gentle words. Throws itself against Ryou plaintively, a half-drowned animal begging for shelter.

"He just wanted things to be fair."

"By hurting others?" Ryou raises an eyebrow, scoffs and turns back to his food.

"No," Malik can feel anger heating in him, rattling the metal of his bones, boiling and hissing, "Yes," He admits, "You lived with him; you must have understood."

"I did not live with him - he possessed me," Ryou takes another bite of fruit, "Get it right."

"But you must have understood," He looked at Ryou plaintively; begging and burning to be heard, "You must have understood what drove him."

Ryou cleans the fruit to the bones, tossing the pip to his plate, "Sadism, cruelty-"

"Pain," Malik chokes, truth ringing through his skill, "Loss, grief enough to drown-"

"What," Ryou asks delicately, disdainfully, deliberately, "Would he have to mourn?"

It had been night when the story had curled out of Bakura's mouth, clinging to his teeth and ribcage with each word. Every murmur desperate not to be heard. Leaking an angry sorrow that bristled and lashed out at Malik - every look between them an accusation from Bakura that Malik had to answer. He guarded the story, curled his body about it, pressed it into himself. It was a gift to ever know about the blood that Bakura's heart was adrift in, the fire running through his soul. It burnt to protect it, and now it came snarling out, readily.

Malik didn't think Bakura would have minded, but when he saw Ryou's expression - chewing a mouthful of food, thoughtful and detached - he knew Bakura's secrets would have been better off buried with Bakura.

"I don't see how that was Atem's fault," Ryou told Malik told Bakura.

"And Bakura was still in the wrong," Ryou added, threw a shovel of sand into the gaping wound.

"I know this is meant to make me sympathize," Ryou confessed sharply, "But I don't see the point to this story," Finally, almost regretfully, but not enough, never enough, Ryou finishes, "It doesn't mean anything."

Malik looks off to the side, "I suppose it doesn't."


End file.
